Martin Luther, king

He's so unhip that when you say "Dylan," he thinks you're talkin' about Dylan Thomas, whoever he was. The man ain't got no culture.

-- Paul Simon

Modern education being what it is, I've lost count of the number of times I've said something about Martin Luther only to have someone assume I was talking about Martin Luther King. Yesterday I finally had someone make the opposite error.

I was teaching English cadence and intonation -- something that can be challenging for native speakers of tonal languages -- and the textbook had a few brief passages for the students to practice reading aloud, one of which was this:

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

By way of background, I explained that this was a famous quote from Martin Luther King and asked if anyone knew who he was. Heading off a common misunderstanding (in Chinese a royal title comes after the person's name rather than before it as in English), I said that he wasn't a king, that King was his last name.

One teenage boy said, "But he wanted to be a king."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well, he challenged the most powerful man in Europe, the pope."

I guess the exact lines quoted in the textbook facilitated that misunderstanding -- no direct mention of America or race relations, but instead of a "creed."